Tourist Trap (1979 film)

Tourist Trap is a 1979 American supernatural slasher film directed by David Schmoeller and starring Chuck Connors, Jocelyn Jones, Jon Van Ness, Robin Sherwood, and Tanya Roberts. The film follows a group of young people who stumble upon a roadside museum run by Mr. Slausen, a lonely eccentric, where an unknown killer with psychokinetic powers begins to murder them.

Schmoeller co-wrote the screenplay with J. Larry Carroll who served as producer for the film alongside Charles Band in association with Manson International. It was adapted from Schmoeller's short film The Spider Will Kill You (1976). Principal photography took place in Los Angeles in the spring of 1978, with Robert A. Burns serving as the film's production designer.

Compass International Pictures, who had recently released the hit Halloween (1978), distributed the film, releasing it in the United States on March 14, 1979. The film was a modest box office success, grossing $4 million against its $350,000 budget. Despite its grotesque subject matter and depictions of violence, the film was given a PG rating by the Motion Picture Association of America, which resulted in it being frequently broadcast on live television in the years following its theatrical release. In the United Kingdom, the film was released under the alternate title Nightmare of Terror. While it received mixed reviews from film critics at the time, Tourist Trap has garnered praise from modern reviewers for its surrealistic elements and unique plot.